Desire and Anthropology

What is it about?

Anthropology is a discipline based on the motif of the journey and ‘the myth of the eternal return’. This is the journey out to the ‘other’ in order to return to constitute ‘self, and this movement is a movement of desire. The desire is for wholeness, for self‐presence, for a unified self. It is a desire for origins. And this desire is evident in anthropological practices as it is in myths and fairytales—all tell stories that speak of the desire for a separate, an original, self. Yet ‘the myth of the eternal return’ reveals that the enactment of the story is itself originating. The origin is not a thing to be hunted down and appropriated—it is no thing. Like the archetypes which flow through stories, it is alive in the telling. The story I tell in this paper is about my own desires. It speaks of the desire to undergo the rite of passage of anthropology: the desire for a transcendental journey in order to constitute self and the seductive desire for immersion—to lose self, the story remains in suspense.

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